All Over Bar The Eating
mood: 
grateful
I had a fantastic haul of presents representing, in various combinations, all the things I love best: cuddly animals, exotic booze, scooters, socks, Scottie dogs, aeroplanes, Doctor Who DVDs, the colours red and orange, and a Swatch watch. I even achieved my long-held ambition of finishing off the entire dish of roast potatoes. (It breaks my heart to see any end up in the food waste bin.) In addition, my dear pal organised her regular Boxing Day curry at the Wimborne Tandoori, where we all flee to grumble about our families for a couple of hours, and this morning I dropped in on
kowarth and his folks. 
I think most of us want our Christmases to stay exactly the same forever. Obviously mine is different to the way it was a few years ago, but some of the new ways are lovely.
For one thing, my mum's thatched cottage is like something out of a Christmas card, and it is delightful arriving in the dark on Christmas Eve to welcoming lights in the windows. Howard coming over for Christmas dinner, after my mum and I have opened our presents, is quickly becoming another tradition. Thanks to
callmemadam for putting up with an extra mouth to feed (and our occasional friendly roughhousing).My thoughts go out to all of you whose Christmases are not what they used to be, and especially to the too many of you for whom this is the first Christmas of things being different.
I suppose I could call this Christmas "different" as it was just me, Mum and Dad for a change. I have still yet to sample the delights of being with my SO over Christmas but that'll come...I hope!
Anyway! Nice haul and it sounds like a good day was had by all!
Edited at 2013-12-30 01:11 am (UTC)
I'm hoping this will be the last time I wake up here on Xmas morning though. And by the sounds of things, it may well be the last that J does too. If needs be I can still come around here and do all those mad things I'd usually do like make pigs in blankets then throw the leftover rind at the cats, but it will be nice to wake up somewhere and have something to do without waiting on anybody else :)
xx
What was the manner of the aforementioned exotic booze? ^_^ Looks like a Scotch of some variety.. ?
A Boxing Day curry! Yay! I took Mum out to a good local (to her) pub, where we both wound up ordering steak. =:9 Good place - the menu’s simple stuff, but done well, especially the cider-braised ham, egg, and chips. Having six or so farmhouse ciders and perries available certainly doesn’t hurt my opinion, but we were both in agreement that it exuded a really snug atmosphere - the kind of pub locals happy do call their local.
(For Christmas Day itself, we went to another pub, with a rather fine line in food - expensive, but damned good! The starters and desserts were effectively tasting menus in their own right, with little samples of six different dishes, like zabaglione, cheesecake, and Christmas pudding. The latter even I finished off, and I don’t even normally like it =:)
I suppose I’m fairly used to Christmases always being fairly different, for better or for worse. We’ve gone from being just a routinely small family of mother, father, and two sprogs, through to adding a few more fostered family members, to Dad moving away, followed gradually shedding those extra siblings from the homestead as they moved out, all along with rather a lot of moves, let alone my own. All that said, I suppose I’d admit the appeal of those earlier ones, just through the simplicity of it all, and the fun of looking forward to Santa visiting. ^_^ (Did you use pillowcases to receive his gifts as well, or is that just us? =:)
The Boxing Day pub does sound particularly good! My exotic booze ration was a bottle of premixed Vesper and two small 'Drinks by the Dram', one vodka and one rum. ("Don't mix it with anything!" pleaded the donor.)